Friday, 16 September 2011

Lynn Whitlow

Almost a year ago we had Lynn Whitlow visiting. She is one of the world’s best yoga teachers. We have put together a list of Lynn’s top ten pieces of advice from the seminar, for you to enjoy incorporating into your own personal practice!

1. Three elements of Hatha Yoga:Breathing- Normal breathing is calm and relaxed, in control, regardless of the breathing pattern.Focus and concentration- Use your eye direction and balance.Strength- Find the muscle contraction.2. Yoga is the only subject in the world, where the subject in not the object.” Translation: The object of yoga is not the posture, the object is the body.3. Focus on what you can do!4. Smile! “Smiling happy face,” is not just a silly line in the dialogue. It actually dates back to the Sutras of Patanjali, and smiling will help you relax and enable you to be more easeful in the poses. :)5. It’s important to do the practice, even with an injury. As one part of the body heals and improves, the injured part will also receive benefit and will start to catch up and heal over time.6. We create space in the joints not compression. We compress the organs, muscles, and glands.7. Backward bending increases the flow of energy in the Chakras; forward bending decreases the flow of energy in the Chakras.8. Tension in the posture is emotional; contraction in the posture is physical.9. The standing series burns calories, the floor series burns fat.10. For each individual posture, the dialogue is like a cereal box, giving you the most important ingredient first. When looking at the entire series, it’s the opposite. The postures become more important as you progress through the series.

BONUS TIP! There is no such thing as pacing yourself. As you move through the series, each posture builds on the next, and you gain energy. It follows a very simple moral principal in life; the more you give, the more you receive.